Yes! Roon 1.6, now available for update, fully supports Qobuz. And yes, you can get a Qobuz account to use in the US, regardless of their announcement schedule. (Use a British VPN to when signing up for the account)
I’m really excited about this, as BubbleUPnP has been somewhat unreliable for me, while Roon has been much more reliable.
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Just put in a request to be a U.S. Beta tester… Fingers crossed. Looking forward to experimenting with it through my Roon account…
Hey Roon/Qobuz bleeding-edge types! How about sharing thoughts, perceptions, setting tips, experiences, etc. in this thread for all to see?
[Note to Admin: Have not seen a similar focus in other threads…but feel free to move this message if it makes sense.]
Why not just get a trial or free account with a British VPN, establish a free Qobuz account, and see for yourself? I used PayPal, to avoid the chance that they could reject me for being in the US.
The whole process takes about 5 minutes, and then you remove the VPN, as you don’t need it for ordinary streaming from anywhere.
PS - it works fine and sounds good, and there are few settings in Roon to screw up, unlike JRiver, for example. Adding Qobuz is as simple as updating your Roon to 1.6, and then just like adding Tidal was.
That’s the plan.
Regards.
PS
So far, the 1.6 edition is a very solid update. The new and improved Radio feature is particularly great.
Completely agree on the Radio feature - it’s excellent.
I got in on the Qobuz Beta yesterday. For my musical tastes, Qobuz has about 90-95% of the catalog depth that Tidal brings. Qobuz’s hi-res catalog seems to be proportional to Tidal’s MQA list, maybe 5% of all albums, with a lot of overlap: if it’s in MQA on Tidal, it’s almost certainly on hi-res in Qobuz.
I’ve been generally a fan of the sound of MQA over streamed 16/44 on Tidal. But after a lot of A/B/A comparison on half a dozen albums last night, I have to give the edge to Qobuz hi-res over MQA. Head-to-head, MQA is a little more brittle, a little less meaty, a little more tipped-up in the highs – which first comes across as being more alive, but over time feels like hash or noise.
Hmmmmmmm! Interesting.
One issue I’ve noticed with Roon using both Tidal and Qobuz: the volume levels are several dB different, with Qobuz tracks playing considerably louder than Tidal tracks.
i view this as an opportunity to drop my Tidal subscription.
Bunch of dang good observations and questions : )
Check the ‘loudness normalization’ option in Tidal, this feature is on by default but one has the option to put it off (Qobuz doesn’t mess with that;-)
Tidal’s ‘loudness normalisation’ is based on this study:
https://octo.hku.nl/octo/repository/getfile?id=qLlZPGSVXFM
No such setting in Tidal settings on my Mac, v 2.3.0.530 (W: 3.7.0–31) (NP: 2.6.1.108)
Only choice under Playback is Autoplay.
Are you maybe on Windows?
The setting is in their native app (IOS & Android, > ‘My Collection’ - settings symbol in upper right corner) and probably only related to offline content…
An interesting feature with mixed Tidal/Qobuz playlists: I disabled my Tidal subscription, and now when I play a mixed playlist, the Tidal tracks show in the queue as “Unavailable”, and, more importantly, it skips those tracks, rather than simply stalling.
Good behavior, IMHO.
Well I got in on the Qobuz Beta test. I must say based on all of the buzz, I was expecting Qobuz to blow away Tidal. I have found some music on each that I feel sounds better and worse. I was hoping for more hi-res music (Contemporary/Smoot Jazz) but so is life. Currently I don’t see myself switching from Tidal to Qobuz. Maybe things will change at some point.
Does anyone know if Qobuz has a student rate? I’m currently utilizing the student rate for Tidal (50% off). When I signed up for the beta testing I didn’t see one.
One thing I have notice when on Qobuz via Roon I sometimes get some static burst at the beginning of tracks. I tend to see this when going from Qobuz to Tidal or even going from Qobuz to local files.
I’ve searched and found that Qobuz does not have a student rate.
